Social capital, institutions and economic performance in times of crisis

Objectives

The interest in understanding the role of social capital on important issues such as institutional reliability, income disparities or economic development has witnessed a remarkable progress in recent times. The discussion gains momentum if we factor in the difficult economic scenario in many European economies and the varying levels of social capital present in each country. This workshop aims to contribute to this topic by examining state-of-the-art contributions by scholars specialized in the broad field of social capital.

It is well known that one of the difficulties when evaluating the contributions of social capital is to properly define the concept. Scholars agree that social capital is a broad and multifaceted element that can be approached from different perspectives. Questions to be answered before starting any research initiative are related to i) the level of the analysis, i.e. national/regional, firm or individual level; ii) the choice of suitable measures of social capital; iii) the aspects on which to evaluate their effects, i.e. macroeconomic magnitudes, innovation processes or individual preferences, to name some topics on which previous evidence is available.

According to these arguments, the workshop is organized in three parts. The first one is devoted to present new methodologies that can be applied in the field of social capital. The second part deals with the topic from a macroeconomic perspective, at both national and regional levels. Finally, the third part approaches the concept from a more microeconomic perspective, focusing the analysis more tightly at the firm and individual level.

The speakers are all recognized scholars in the field of social capital and come from a variety of prestigious institutions, both national and international.